Paul’s ART STUFF on a train # 60: ’No Pencils in Ramsgate’

Cedric Christie: ‘Promises No. 2’, 2014

An art trip to Thanet has plenty to commend it just now. First, a riot of thoughtful reflections on colour and light at Turner Contemporary, courtesy of Spencer Finch, Edmund de Waal, Sol Lewitt and an exemplary selection of early Mondrian which shows, in his words, how he moved towards ‘plastic expression of relationships, not forms’. Second, there’s an excellent double show at Ramsgate’s UpDown Gallery (to July 6). The first floor Up is new work by Cedric Christie, including the latest in his long-running series of scaffold pieces, which might be described as line drawings achieved by sculptural means. ‘When Dreams Become Promises’ uses three sections of pipe in each work: two heavily rusted, being I suppose the practical realities of the world, outnumbering yet encouragingly outshone by the eidetic prospects one might read into the third, smoothly powder-coated, element. The ground floor Down is Christie’s choice of work by 20 other artists which are also drawings in which the lines are made by any means except the conventional. Highlights include Pascal Rousson’s new strand of knotted rope webs; Simon Liddiment’s way of chipping paint off wood to ambiguate object, image and geometry; and Loukas Morley’s hanging presentation of a found squashed supermarket basket which makes a distorted grid drawing. He told me that anti-Tesco campaigners had shown an interest in using it, which figures; and that he’d tried deliberately running over many another basket to far less satisfying effect.

Loukas Morley: ‘Basket’, 2011

Most days art Critic Paul Carey-Kent spends hours on the train, traveling between his home in Southampton and his day job in Surrey. Could he, we asked, jot down whatever came into his head?

About Paul Carey-Kent

Art critic and curator, based near Southampton. I write most regularly for
Art Monthly, Frieze, Elephant, State, Photomonitor... and, of course, FAD.